The trend of many applications nowadays is to go web based. Even internal systems for many companies are being deployed as web based applications because of the ease of deployment and maintenance. A web based application only needs to be maintained on the web server computer. Any update on the application is reflected on all workstations. And the cheapest and easiest way to implement a web server is to use Linux.

Linux as a server platform has been a popular choice for many years already. However, the apparent “ease of use” of another popular operating system has hindered the adoption of Linux as a development platform. But the development tools in Linux has significantly improved in recent years. And because you can use Linux both as the server and the development computer, you only need one computer when doing software development and testing. This is an advantage for an IT student who may have limited access to server computers.

In corporate environments, Red Hat Linux is the top choice among Linux distributions because Red Hat assures its clients a distribution that they have extensively tested. A free distribution that uses the same code as Red Hat but is compiled by a different organization is called CentOS. Very new features are introduced into a Red Hat sponsored Linux distribution called ‘Fedora’. Fedora releases a new version every six months and therefore new improvements and new features are introduced in Fedora. Features that become widely used, stable and important eventually get into the Red Hat Linux distribution.

IT Students are encouraged to install and learn Fedora Linux as it offers an upgrade path towards the Red Hat enterprise Linux distribution. This means proficiency in Fedora would also mean proficiency in Red Hat and this would mean an advantage over other job applicants who have not used Fedora.

Fedora is currently at version 11 and are distributed in DVDs. You may get your DVD copy at Auza.Net Internet Media Center located at the K of C Recreation Center. You may download it also at http://www.fedoraproject.org/.